Wednesday, 10 November 2010

Just Chill, Mr Gill!

As a Whovian, an article in this week's Sunday Times was of great interest to me. Controversial television critic A A Gill bemoans the lack of good British TV writers in Why our TV is in my sights. He claims that homegrown drama (particularly the BBC's) has regressed, is cliche-ridden, and "is stuck in the 1970's". One favoured target is Doctor Who, which he decscribes as "a pensionable children's programme that has sucked up a huge budget to make gratifying teenage excitement out of empty, silly Edwardian stories. It's production team have been used to outsource both Sherlock [Holmes] and Torchwood. Doctor Who and Austen/Dickens together account for the greatest slice of the BBC's drama budget".

Doctor Who in fact earns millions of pounds for the Corporation in overseas sales alone, and is currently one of the largest TV franchise in the world, so chill Gill!